LK102, Deity, RaR, just win.

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I don't understand why you have such a bad opinion of US & Co. In my eayes, they have a pretty strong effect .

I do, however, fully agree with questioning the "Banking Strategy". It was a smart move to get the good weaponry technics before a possible anarchy.
But I don't like to borrow from a friend without intention to pay him back. That's a bit a roleplaying issue for me; if a big, mean neighbor threatens me, it feels fine to rip him off.
But not a fair trading partner.

 

[romeothemonk]

Hmm. Lets just wait out the India deal. we should honor our deals as it really does pay to be honorable. (Plus I believe it is directly stated/implied in the rules, and we want to follow the rules).
Crush Abe with extreme vengence.
If there is cleanup to do, I will do it on my turns, otherwise, Central Bank, Wall Street, here I come.
Minor Nitpick T_McC, I do not think that the summer palace was the best use of an MGL, as the National Gallery, National monument and Central Bank were all availible. (National monument fixes some WW issues as well).
Where do we sit on the Supreme court? There was 1 DC started on my last turnset, did any more get built?
Other than that, lower the boom the best we know how.

 

[LKendter]

Where do we sit on the Supreme Court? There was 1 DC started on my last turn set, did any more get built?

IIRC correctly it was built on my turn. It sounds like I may have screwed up on reporting that fact.

We very likely already have WW; let's see ... 33% already.

Well that really sucks. We didn't even get a chance to build any of the war monuments for help.

I knew the war with America was coming. We just can't get a break this game. I knew we would want the rail-net I started pushing hard, but even I didn't think it would happen this soon.
Even though it is doing well I hate fighting with WW starting turn one. Multiple cities being lost temporarily killed a lot of buildings. I really wanted us to be in the drivers seat.

Signed up:
LKendter
T_McC
Greebley (currently playing)
Romeothemonk (on deck)
Doc Tsiolkovski

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to complete.

 

[Greebley]

We ARE tied down to the India deal. They didn't declare war. Lee has stated that not paying gpt during anarchy is fine. My intent wasn't really to get out of the deal, it was to get the required techs if we could. If all 4 steals had worked, we would also not be at war as I would have used the rest of the cash for upgrades. That was the ideal scenario.

I felt our chance of getting the one tech for Cav was a pretty good shot. If it failed and India declared war, the rest of the cash would have gone to rushing units. The main reason I did it the way I did is there really isn't a losing option.

Paying the high gpt will be a bit rough, but we should be able to manage it.

And you are right I probably should have tied the deal with MA on Greece

Edit: I will also be trying to avoid anarchy. Not sure it is doable (probably isn't), but I already moved the boats out of enemy territory so we don't get the +1 WW for being in enemy lands.

Cross-post with Lee - ya this was an unfortunate way to get into the war. It will be expensive especially with Anarchy nearly certain. Taking American lands will have to do to make up for it.

 

[romeothemonk]

I missed the Supreme court build notice. Sorry LK.
What other wonders do we want from this age?
Arc De Triumphe?
Spirit of St. Louis?
Empire St. Building?
Echelon? (I think I know this one)

 

[LKendter]

I missed the Supreme court build notice. Sorry LK.
What other wonders do we want from this age?
Arc De Triumphe?
Spirit of St. Louis?
Empire St. Building?
Echelon? (I think I know this one)

Yes, we very much want echelon. Reduction in WW *AND* reduction in corruption is just way to good.

We build Arc De Triumphe LK98 and it seems to go away quickly. I am not sure how much of a help it is. Since we will control our landmass, the value of garrisions is greatly reduced. All we will soon need is 2 good defenders per coastal city to discourage any marine tricks. Well, maybe 3, in the IP city and a couple other wonder cities.

The other 2 would be bad in the capitol if we get thinks like Central Bank build with the 50% revenue boast. Getting 2 trade bonus items together with a lot of revenue / science boasters is great.

 

[Greebley]

I want to make sure we have sufficient units for the war, but after that I can look into the Echelon.

One Issue: If we do drop into Anarchy and end up with a different govt, do we still plan to revolt back? I don't want to build items that only work with one govt if we are in another govt.

Or do govt specific wonders last past a govt change?

 

[LKendter]

Or do govt specific wonders last past a govt change?

Doc can confirm this, but I think they disappear. I know government specific buildings simply disappear.

One Issue: If we do drop into Anarchy and end up with a different govt, do we still plan to revolt back?

There are NO governments with the trade bonus that don't suffer from WW. The only low WW appears to be Republic. Republic suffers from horrid corruption in RaR. It also suffers from no worker bonus. That would slow rail buildings horrible and render our free workers all but useless.

It if gets so bad that we are in anarchy it is time for peace. I am not ready to spend the rest of the game in a horrid government, or suffer through a double revolt.

 

[Greebley]

We are not allowed to go to peace by the house rules. We have to honor the 20 turn alliances. [Edit: I woundn't want to ruin our abilty to ally either]

I see no choice but to go for Abs Monarchy if the govt falls.

 

[LKendter]

We are not allowed to go to peace by the house rules. We have to honor the 20 turn alliances. [Edit: I wouldn't want to ruin our ability to ally either]

I see no choice but to go for Abs Monarchy if the govt falls.

Ouch I missed the alliances part. Someone I only saw the trade embargo half of the comment. We may very well be stuck with Abs Monarchy.


All we can do now is pray the government doesn't collapse. We are so trapped between a rock and a hard place on this one. Two more revolts would be horrid, and playing the rest of game with Abs Monarchy would be horrid.

 

[Gyathaar]

well.. you could stay in anarchy untill the alliances end..
you dont have to pick a government.. just hit the X in the government pick window.. and you will keep getting the question every turn untill you decide

 

[LKendter]

well.. you could stay in anarchy untill the alliances end..
you dont have to pick a government.. just hit the X in the government pick window.. and you will keep getting the question every turn untill you decide

That is an acceptable option if we are at close to the end of the alliances, or the end of America.

 

[romeothemonk]

I doubt that we can cause the government to fall. I have had 60% WW before in RaR and not had the government fall, so we should be safe. I can't imagine that now that we have the initiative, we will garner little new WW. This will be very similar to playing as france in the Napoleonic Conquest.

 

[Greebley]

I have been thinking about this and I will do my best. Moving more slowly to not lose units seems to be the way to go.

If we do collapse then I will go for a kill as fast as possible.

 

[T_McC]

On a variety of topics:

Re: the MGL rush. National Gallery costs a few shields, but if we're not researching it's useless. Central Bank would be worth 60-70 gpt, but the Summer Palace netted us ~50 raw trade. That translates into something like 60 gpt + a help to unhappiness since we running a non-zero lux tax. Plus it gives shields. National Monument is worth +50% taxes above the effect of the 100-shield War Memorial, so not that exciting to rush. If we get more leaders any of these things is preferable to an Army.

I'm not a big fan of Suffrage because it only effects 1 person/city, and thus may not even make a 10% difference in lux tax. It's a nice effect to have, but I wouldn't spend >1000 shields on it. It would make sense in this situation to rush the Tomb if we get another leader, since we're not investing shields in hand-building.

Government specific wonders do disappear upon gov't change. But they should come back if we return to the same gov't.

Greebley won't need to look into Echelon unless he can steal his way to Totalitarianism at the end of this age.

Re: Running a deficit in Anarchy. Lee can speak to this, but I suspect this rule is meant to be "Don't worry about starving our cities with taxmen just to avoid going 10 gpt in the hole during Anarchy" rather than "Feel free to pay someone ~800 gpt in money that appears from nowhere".

I don't believe we can avoid the Anarchy by building WW-fighting improvements. The improvements reduce the effects of WW seen in a particular city but they don't effect the internal level counter. Once we hit the requisite level in a high-WW gov't, we head into Anarchy.

It may be possible to avoid the Anarchy-level, though. We have a row of Barricades that were manned with Rifles and Cannons at the end of my turns. Abe cannot send any units past that to get into our backlines, and there is only 1 city he can attack. We can ride out a lot of turns from those Barricades and our cities, just picking off the units that straggle through. If we garrison Zaria heavily enough Abe won't even bother trying to attack there. We have way more than enough units to fight this way, and unless we lose some really unlikely battles (or Abe makes some really dumb attacks) we may be able to go 10 turns without any gain in WW.

And that is Greebley's karmic punishment for trying to screw Ghandi: He is forced to fight a strict holding action.

 

[Greebley]

First the good news: No Anarchy. The rest of the war added only 1 WW point.

1310 AD: Bombard (3 artillery redline 3 defenders) and capture Memphis.
Also bombard and capture Detroit and Buffalo, Boston, and Kansas City.
We get a leader. Gah! I pushed the wrong button. We get an army instead of the central bank. Sorry guys, major weed. I just hope we can get another. We had so many nice small wonders we wanted too. Grrr!

No losses on our side.

IBT: Don't see much from America. I am covering all squares well, however, so he may just not be attacking us.

1315 AD:
Capture Washington, Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Fransisco.
I get another leader and push the right button! Go Me! It was tough but I did it. Hurry the Central bank in the IP city.

IBT: Taj Mahal is completed. India starts the Crystal Palace.

1320 AD:
Our first casualty since I started playing. A Cavalry loses vs a 2 hp Pike.
Capture Baltimore, Houston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and St Louis.

America has been destroyed. Only lost one unit tonight

1325 AD:
Building gold back up to 1000 for the central bank.
Changed all the builds. We are building almost entirely infrastructure for now.

Notes:
I managed to keep the WW down so no Anarchy. I tried to minimize worker sacrifice since we need workers. I felt in this case it was necessary. Anarchy is way worse than losing a few paltry workers.

I will try to also build a few more laborers as well to make up for the loss.

If you were wondering why I worked so hard to get Artillery and Cavalry in the preturn, you have your answer. 4 turns to kill a civ nearly as big as ourselves.

We are at +400 gold even though we are paying out the 641 gpt.

We have 4 armies. I built two during the wars (and one Faux Pax) and we got a last one for free. I am working on the Pentagon so we will have 4 powerful Cavalry armies shortly after the end of my turn.

[Edit: We own 46% of the land area.]

To be continued: The next 5 turns should be much faster.

 

[Greebley]

Note that America was much weaker than I expected. They had used all their fast offensive units on TMcC's turn (I saw a very few speed 3 units) and had no time to build more. The slow units were a non-issue. They couldn't reach us and were easy to bombard.

 

[LKendter]

Hurry the Central bank in the IP city.

I would have preferred the capitol. That will hopefully build the revenue boosters Empire State and Spirit of St. Louis and would have benefited more.


Now that we own our continent we can remove all troops from guarding the interior. My goal is 2 real defenders (not cannons or cavalry) in east coastal city with the rest of the military on reserve duty by the capitol. Once this is done we can start thinking about the overseas invasion. This game is clearly going to be a domination win.


I am surprised how fast America collapsed. It looks like the scary forces we saw near there towns behind our lines was ALL of there forces.


Signed up:
LKendter
T_McC
Greebley
Romeothemonk (currently playing)
Doc Tsiolkovski (on deck)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to complete.

 

[romeothemonk]

Greebley has 5 more turns first, then I can get it.
I will try and get our base gpt up by over 100 gpt, my normal goal in builder turns.
The Central bank placement isn't really key, I think the 50 gpt interest more than outweighs the +25% or +50% taxes it brings.
Do we want to start researching? We can start a prebuild for the Crystal Palace and probably still get it.
If we want to research I will throw up a bunch more research buildings. If we just want cash, I will focus on cash buildings, then shield buildings.

 

[Greebley]

Capitol was busy and I didn't want to leave a leader hanging around when we could get another. Also I expect the IP city is going to have as good base gold than the capitol with the coastal squares. It is base gold that matters, not total gold (unless we have multiple +1 gold per square wonders in the capitol?? - I don't think we do...)